The Little Brother
Dora Sigerson Shorter 1866 (Dublin) – 1918
O brother, brother, come down to the crags by the bay,
Come down to the caves where I play;
For oh! I saw on the rocks, asleep,
A fair mermaid, and the slow waves creep
To bear her away, away.
O brother, brother, come quick, till you laugh with me,
For no mermaid so fair is she,
But the little lass that I saw last night,
(I hid in the shade, you stood in the light),
And she weeping most bitterly.
O brother, brother, I watched her the live-long day,
Saw her hair grow jewelled with spray;
Once her cheek was brushed by a gull's wet wing,
And a finch flew down on her hand to sing,
And was not afraid to stay.
O brother, brother, will she soon awakened be?
I would she might laugh now with me.
She sleeps, and the world so full of sound—
She's so deaf, like the dead that are under the ground,
That I laugh and laugh to see.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 68 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBACCDDCAAEEACCFFC |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 817 |
Words | 168 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 20 |
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"The Little Brother" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/42875/the-little-brother>.
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